Posts Tagged ‘logic’

How Does Consciousness Arise?

Consciousness is our knowing state, but where does it ultimately comes from? If you can observe consciousness then you are out of it and transcending it, so consciousness itself must have a base. Let’s find it through logic.

First, there is an image in consciousness that resembles an object that comes to us through the five senses. That’s what the five sense consciousness do for us. They give us these signless images, these non-labeled images that appear in consciousness.

There is next a function of consciousness that grasps those images, that turns the images into discrete particular things to be experienced with particular properties and attributes. Otherwise every object would be like every other object to you, and every sense field like every other sense field. This is done by a part of consciousness which we typically call the “mind.” It gives names and properties to things. Basically it’s responsible for naming and labeling.

Next there is the knowing part of consciousness we call the “apparent knower” and take as our assumed silent self. This is the self-reflexive knower, the source of intellectualization, the pivot by which you judge and know things. This is the self-authenticating aspect of consciousness we call the self or knower.

This knower is what knows the thoughts. When there is a thought there is consciousness, but when consciousness is empty, what’s there? You’re not annihilated or extinct or non-existent because obviously the world still goes on. You might think there is a gap within consciousness, but somehow it arises again. There is always a continuity of awareness behind, above, beyond or transcending consciousness, however you want to word it. It is awareness that is there when consciousness is empty without any object.

We can call this awareness “primordial awareness” or “ready awareness” or the “potential for consciousness” or “presence,” which are all just a way of saying is-ness or be-ingness without the thoughts of being so.

These three parts – the reflected images of perception, the descriptive grabbing of discrimination, and the knowing must all share the same base or supporting substance otherwise they could not connect, hence they are all ultimately parts or functions of the same consciousness. All three are one, they are the same thing talked about in three parts because of the different characteristics or functions being performed. Yet they must all be united as one otherwise they could not interact with one another.

Now if you think deeply, you’ll realize that the seventh consciousness, or self-authenticating nature, has to have something beyond it, something that authenticates it, something transcending it. There has to be something which stands behind or transcends the knowing aspect of the inner I. In technical terms, there is something that authenticates the apparent self, that stands behind knowingness. If there was not something behind knowingness, knowingness could NOT arise. There must be something that gives rise to consciousness. There must be something aprior that corroborates conscious knowing. Read more…